Divine Celestials
In our setting, god as christianity knows him and as many other religions have known him, is infact an ancient being known to the other Celestials as "Deus", "the Maker", "the Lord" or "the Creator" who claims to be the creator of all things. This creator exists in a seperate dimension known as the Celestial Realm, or rather, he (mostly referred to as a "he" despite most likely being genderless) did. While the majority of all still living celestials refuse to acknowledge it, Deus himself is no longer to be found anywhere. No celestials have ever looked upon Deus, he maintained his own place in the celestial realm, and only the Namaru (the First House of Celestials) were ever in his presence, apart from his personal servants of course, known as the eyeless angels (they aren't actually eyeless, but the Namaru gave them this nickname because they felt that if they could be so blind, they might as well be eyeless), who still roam his palace. The Namaru were also the first to realize that the voice commanding them and the divine presence hey were in when they were in the palace of Deus, was not their creator, but something else. They named it the God Machine. Deus as well as the God Machine that now has taken his place were both creatures above spirits, humans, ghosts and so on. As a result, there is no spirit representation of neither Deus or the God Machine, rather they also exists in the spirit world, probably thought to be merely the spirit representation of "god" by many spirits, but the more well-informed spirits know differently, or at lest suspect this (as a spirit would never be able to confirm it). Thousands of years of worship, sacrifice and doings in their many names, the names different gods that were all eventually warped into one god, now worshipped by three of the worlds greatest religions, Christians, Jews and Muslims have left the divinity in terms of raw spirit power almost as powerful as Helios, and despite Helios still being the most powerful known spirit in the spirit world, it is believed by some that know of the god machine, that he is infact enslaved by the god machine, because he too has been worshipped as the body of the god machine. For the sake of simplicity, the God Machine is from now on referred to simply as Deus, where as Deus will be referred to as the True Deus. It's not known, but widely speculated about, what actually happened to the True Deus, but the discovery that he was no longer present in the celestial realm caused a divide in the celestial realm, and the "Angels" cast down the "demons". The Celestials who rebelled are branded Demons, where as those who remained loyal are known as Angels. The Demon who first rebelled against Deus is today popularly known as Lucifer in the western world. This isn't to say that demons cannot have many names, or that their original means of identification are even comprehensible to humans. Many demons fell afterwards, but not all that fell were rebels. Some were just no longer angels, as their eyes had been openend and they had found the will to speak their minds. It's important to note that the battle for the high heavens continued over the span of several millennia and was not concluded until about the year 100 AD, but MANY demons had already fallen and lost their battle before even the ancient Egyptian Empire came to be. There for, Demons might remember the battle as having ended at different times. 'Lesser Gods' Many lesser gods exist, but are merely celestials of a higher power. They represent the various forgotten and still existing religions that have more than one god. For instance, in Norse Mythology, Tyr, Thor and Freya would exist as Lesser Gods, where as Odin would be represented by Deus. As such several pantheons exist, some of them chained together. The Lesser gods are of little importance however, but are among the only non-fallen angels with personalities remaining. Angels Angels are the still serving Celestials of Deus. They are divided into several houses: 'The Namaru' Heralds and Lieutentants of Deus. Forces, mind and Prime. 'The Lamasu' The Messengers, guides and Muses to the Humans. Mind, life and forces. 'The Rabisu' Lords of the Wild, life, mind and matter. 'The Neberu' The Workers of Cosmos. Time, fate and space. 'The Annunaki' The Shapers and creators, matter, spaces and prime. 'The Asharu' The Life Givers, life, forces and spaces. 'The Halaku' The Unmakers, angels of death. Death, fate and spaces. See Demon the Fallen on more information regarding the houses. The Angels, regardless of house, have been deprived of their free will and serve now as drones and mindless workers of Deus. Still capable of some decision making, their ultimate end goal is always that which Deus has instructed them with. Angels always wear their apocalyptic form (see below) unless they have chosen to possess a body of a human or have used their powers to change their appearance. Demons As many times as Deus has taken upon himself a new face, there are bound to be some amongst his herd, that can no longer recognize their lord. Being the creation of something, and having served your entire life, something that now appears strange to you, is bound to have severe consequences. Demons are the fallen angels, than no longer understand what they exist for. Many are consumed by hatred and their lust for destruction is unfathomable, some search for new masters and others entirely realize that their existence was a lie, and in that regard, the truth sets them free, and they turn on their old master. As a result, many demons were captured and kept imprisoned, and over time, a few of them have escaped to the material world, where they make somewhat feeble attempts at co-existing with the mortals. Like spirits, they can only bind themselves to objects or living bodies. Some were fortunate enough to land in a person, others in animals while some were bound to specific objects. Around the year 2000 however, a large group of demons were all suspiciously released at the same time, and almost all of them ended up in the bodies of humans. About 10% of all the demons that this happened to simply died again shortly after, and vanished from the material realm. Those that made it to a solid form are now living in a strange symbiosis with their new bodies. While fully capable of recreating the events that trapped them in that particular body, many were so shocked by the transition, that they have forgotten who they are. Demons also claim heritage with one of the houses found above under "Angels". Demons, while imprisoned in the bodies of humans and deprived of much of their power, they retain one thing their angel counter parts do not, their free will. That is a small consolation prize however, when so few of them remember anything of importance from their former lives. Those that do remember have formed organizations with various purposes. 'The Faustians ' Faustians seek to help humans realize that they were created in the image of Deus himself, and that they do not need a god, they can replace him. Essentially, what they refer to are the mages. The Faustians seek to awaken as many sleepers as possible. 'The Luciferans' Those who still believe that they must actively oppose the high heavens and Deus. Their purpose is to continue the battle they lost millennia ago. 'The Raveners' The Raveners unite for various reasons with the purpose to bring about the end of the world, or rule it as their own play ground. 'The Reconcilers ' Those who seek redemption in the eyes of Deus. 'Cryptics' Are cryptics. Deal with it. The Nature of a Demon Demons, like angels, are somewhat similar to ghosts and spirits. Demons are essentially "souls", and if you asked a demon who remembered enough to tell you about it, he would tell you that your soul is no different than himself, it's just that his soul has had it's true potential awakened within it. Demons are in many ways similar to mages and second sighters, in that they've awakened to a truth, and they've become "more" through this illumination. But to become a celestial, one will need to realize THE truth, the one fundemental truth about the universe, a truth that is so starteling and revolutionizing that it becomes a part of the soul in question, even though the mind cannot contain. Most people go crazy rather than achieve illumination when faced with this truth, and only people of considerable intellect and with an unfallible resolve will be able to compute it. To compare it to something most people have seen, think about the Matrix. At first, a human mind (a person) was behind the development of the machines, but for some reason (unexplained in the movies) the humans aren't there anymore and the machines are still there, doing what they were doing when they were left behind, namely controlling people. The agents (servants of the machines who in this example are parallels to angels - though not real people in the movies) have capabilities that can bend "reality", because they're aware of the fundamental truth of the matrix. None of what they're looking at, is real. In this regard, second sight characters become matrix anomalies (such as the Oracle - despite her not being a real person either). These people are outfitted with gifts (in the Matrix, they're programs) that allow them to circumvent certain boundries of the program. Finally, the rebels such as Morpheus and Trinity are mages, people who believe they understand the fundemental truth and as a result, they can do the same thing the agents do. What does that make a demon? Well, the only viable comparison left would be Neo, the chosen one, but this is about where this analogy starts falling short. Souls are immortal, and while some souls get trapped in various ways or are prevented from "leaving", most souls travel to the nether upon being released. The nether is an interesting place with many names and many "aspects" to it. It's also the only other realm than the celestial realm, where Celestials can travel freely without first possessing an object or a body (excepting the twilight and the spirit world where some of them, though only through special training, can wander freely as well). Normal souls continue their existence in the nether as a soul never stops to exist (not exactly true, a soul can be "killed" or "destroyed" but this doesn't happen on it's own). It's also in this realm that the demons who were cast down were "imprisoned", or rather in a specific "layer" of this realm. The realm has many names among other supernaturals. The werewolves know it as the "gauntlet", the mages as the "abyss", the truth is that it's a dead zone, but as both werewolves and mages have experienced, in certain locations, the nether realm "joins" with the material realm and other realms too (though these are of little interest to demons). The demons have formed a kingdom in their nether realm which is difficult to comprehend, but Dante's Inferno comes to mind. This kingdom shines through to the material world in some places at these "gateways". You can ask yourself what happens when you lock up beings of potentially near-infinite power with each other for millennia. The short answer is "weird things". Weird things happen. This is known as demonic corruption, as many of the more powerful demons have grown incredibly strong to the point where they've (from an angel's point of view) corruped souls in the nether to join them. These beings and their corruption can also reach through to the material realm through these gateways, slowly spreading. Demonic corruption, if left unchecked will grow disastrous, which is why the few escaped demons who wander the planet often have to deal with it. Demons feed off of the same thing most other supernatural creatures do. They feed off of souls. Other souls. Spirits, ghosts, slashers and to an extent vampires, rely on humans finding them significant or doing certain things. It's the same with demons. They require significance. The demons of the nether do this by corrupting souls into something commonly referred to as "hell spawn" (partial demons - the opposite of a mage essentially who would be a living person who's only been partially corrupted). Demons in human form, or bound to a material object at least, will often require to form herds of followers to strengthen them but there are clearly other ways to do this. 'Apocalyptic Forms' The original Demon the Fallen game had several visages that became apparent in the apocalyptic form, all dependand on their primary lore. This is no longer the case as the Demonic Lore system has been replaced with mage Arcana and the possibility of unlocking a few seperate powers. In the apocalyptic form, all Demons can at will sprout wings of some sort (always the same wings though) or have them permanently showing that they can use to fly. These wings can be actual existing limbs but are usually spectral though possibly appearing quite real. It could be bat wings formed of shadows or eagle wings of pure light. A halo of fire can manifest over their heads and may do so when they become emotional, granting +2 to all intimidation rolls and all presence based rolls. They gain +1 to size, +2 to all physical attributes, They cannot take bashing damage through normal, are immune to poison, disease and falling damage and gain +1 to armor against all things and round up when calculating defense and may further more always apply their defense to incoming attacks, unless it's a surprise attack or something else prevents them. For instance, they normally gain defence against ranged attacks. They also have perfect night sight and may infact see in total darkness. Their other senses are also hightened to super human levels, allowing them to track by smell (although they do not gain any bonuses to such actions). They gain the 9 again effect on combat rolls and rolls associated with their purpose (a Namaru gains 9 again to persuation, intimidation, expression, socialize and subterfuge for instance). They regenerate one point of lethal damage every turn. As a result, bullets (speaking purely of regular bullets here, hollowpoint still deal lethal ect.) deal only bashing damage to them (degraded lethal being the only way they can take bashing damage - it regenerates as if it was lethal), as do lethal weapons with a rating of 0 Lethal. Another side effect is that, in their apocalyptic form, celestials require no sustenance, no sleep and cannot tire. They can deal aggravated (only lethal to mortals) damage somehow, this can be through teeth and claws, or from being surrounded by a shroud of holy fire that burns people, maybe by spawning a flaming sword. This is something they can do at will. Any demon may pick 3 other minor visage effects they would like, from the Demon book, 2 of which must come from the 3 lores associated with their chosen house. The apocalyptic form can be sustained indefinately and is automatically assumed when leaving the material world, how ever assuming it puts a demon at risk of being noticed by agents of Deus, in the end risking to be hunted down by Angels. Further more, assuming the apocalyptic form is not an easy feat for a demon and costs them their valuable celestial energy. Celestial Powers Demons and Angels alike can make use of their divine powers. These function just like mage aracana, with the exception that they have access to all rotes, High Speech comes natural to them, they do not suffer paradoxes and as such, vulgar spells do not cause disbelief. Vulgar spells with no mana cost always cost 1 for Demons and angels, except instead of mana, it costs their own juice stat, called faith. How ever, using vulgar spells in public draws unwanted attention to the demon in some situations, which is why demons are essentially also prevented from using vulgar spells in large public areas, even more so than mages are.